Cryptids for the beginning skeptic

Hello Folks. It looks like, for now, I'm keeping a regular schedule on the posts. I'm as surprised as you are.I felt it was time for another edition of my world famous "Woo for the beginning skeptic" articles. Today, I'm going to discuss one that I have had an interest in for many years. We're talking cryptids, also known as monsters or unknown animals. Before you roll your eyes and say "Cryptids are stupid. There is no reason any self respecting critical thinker should waste their time on them.", just keep reading. Not only are they interesting in their own right, but many times, they are what initially brought people into skepticism and critical thinking. Just look at Blake Smith and Daniel Loxton. Both are well respected members of the skeptical community. (Blake hosts the Monster Talk podcast and Daniel is the author and illustrator of Junior Skeptic in the back of Skeptic magazine, as well as the Tales of Prehistoric Life trilogy and Abominable Science.) Both of them came to critical thinking via cryptids. Now for the main feature.

Definition:
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a cryptid is "An animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the yeti" Therefore cryptozoology is the study of unknown animals. It comes from the Greek word Krypto (also the name of Superman's dog) which means "hide". So basically, it's an animal that people can't find, but as soon as someone legitimately finds one, it can no longer be considered a cryptid.

History:
Throughout human history, we have always told stories about fantastic creatures, You have Enkidu and Humbaba from the Epic of Gilgamesh. You have Grendel from Beowulf. You have the gods in corporeal form in pretty much every culture. The Leviathan in the bible would count as a cryptid. There have always been stories of sea monsters and river creatures. Of course, there is the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, Bigfoot, Bat-Boy, Chupacabra, Leprechauns, and MothMan. People have always used mysterious creatures either as a way to explain a natural phenomenon or as a way to make people behave. An example of the former is saying that some large unknown creature creates whirlpools that pull down ships. An example of the later would be that a vicious animal lives in the woods, so you kids shouldn't go in them, lest you get killed by it. Today, a lot of the stories seem to be driven by an honest curiosity mixed with either a poor or misguided understanding of science, or wanting to make a few bucks off of a costume full of roadkill. I know that this is an extremely short history of cryptids, but just going back to Gilgamesh, that's around 4000 years of monsters. That's not including some of the possible stories that were told around  the fires of our hunter/gatherer ancestors. One of the most amazing things about this is that people still report some of the same creatures that their ancestors did thousands of years ago.

The Cast:
I honestly had a hard time trying to decide where to start. Should I go chronologically, geographically, culturally, type, or just do it randomly? I'm going to try and break down the huge variety of cryptids by their type. There are serpents, humanoids, avian, and some that seem to be an amalgamation of several other animals rather than a single type, more like a chimera that any single animal. I'm not going to list all of the various cryptids, there are way too many. Each type could be an individual in depth article, let alone all of the various cryptids that people have claimed to exist. These creatures are as varied as the cultures they sprang from. Also, areas that are relatively close to one another may have different names for the same thing, or the same name for very different creatures. As well, I'm not going to include aliens, ghosts, or demons. These will probably have their own write-up sometime in the future. So, to get started lets see who the cast of players are.

Humanoid: This group is possibly one of the most diverse, as well as the one of the oldest. Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh was a wild hairy man. Included in this group, you also have Yeti, Bigfoot, the Kappa, the Orang Pendek, reptilian humanoids, Mothman, GoatMan, and so on. Odds are, if man is in the name, it's probably a humanoid cryptids. Most of these creatures have a generally human appearance in that they walk  upright, have 2 arms, with the exception of Mothman who has a pair of wings, 2 legs, though not always human legs,  a torso, and a head. Some are covered in hair, others have scales or smooth skin. Most of these are probably misidentified native wildlife such as a bear or an owl in a tree. A sandhill crane is a common explanation for Mothman. Sometimes, they are possibly just people out trying to pull a prank. As I said, these seem to be some of the most common creatures that get reported. A major problem with the existence of these creatures is that the locations they have been reported in are fairly well explored, and most of the native fauna are well known, with the exception of the Orang Pendek in Sumatra and the Yeti in the Himalayas.

Sea Serpents: Some of the proud members of this group include Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, Champ, the Lake Champlain Monster, The Kraken, and all those cool looking monsters on ancient maps. When looking at Nessie and Champ, you have to consider their size and the habitat they supposedly inhabit. Even Loch Ness couldn't support a breeding population of very large creatures. There simply isn't enough room or food. And for being a plesiosaur, their respective bodies of water were actually under glaciers when plesiosaurs were alive. Now for the actual sea serpents.Out of all the cryptids, I think that an unknown, large deep sea creature would be the most plausible. (coelacanth or the mega-mouth shark anyone?)There is still a lot of the oceans we haven't explored, and unlike a terrestrial creature, there isn't as much of a hindrance in their movement. Instead of being locked into a specific location, it is much easier for an aquatic animal to travel. That being said, I really think that most reports of sea serpents are previously known animals. Most of the time, these are possibly misidentified animals such as the oarfish, big-mouth shark, or the giant squid. And of course, there are the dead, bloated, and decaying carcasses that occasionally wash up on shore, which spur reports of "Dead Sea Serpent Found Washed Up On Local Beach." I have seen pictures of a variety of animals, ranging from oarfish to sharks and from raccoons to half eaten tuna being portrayed by the media as some sort of unknown sea monster. At some point, a marine biologist will say what the carcass belongs to, but by that time, the media is off to the races on the next fear inducing headline.

Avian: These are pretty odd, and very interesting at the same time. You have creatures like the Thunder Bird of Native American lore, the Roc from the Middle East, and stories of pterasaurs surviving into the modern era. Mothman could have possibly fit into this category, but I felt he (or is it a she?) is more humanoid in appearance. There are also stories of extremely large bats and bat-like creatures in various parts of the world, and I feel that they would probably fit into this category the most. There was a bird called the Elephant Bird, which like an emu, an ostrich, a moa, or a cassowary, was a large flightless bird,  Of course there are legends about this creature also. Looking at present day reports of large avian creatures, I am of the opinion that most are, once again, misidentified. Some birds, especially the raptors, can get pretty damn big. Have you ever seen a great horned owl? Huge bird. Vultures or condors? Very big birds. Many time, when people are reporting that they've seen something like a Thunder Bird (not the car), they are looking up and see a bird shape in the sky, which makes determining the size very difficult. Or they see it flying by tree, in front of trees, or over the tops of trees. Once again, people normally aren't very good at recognizing when one object is directly over another, which makes trying to determine size or speed difficult. Plus, if there were super large creatures flying around, with all the flights that go on everyday, don't you think someone would have hit one with a plane by now? (I think that the "If it existed, wouldn't someone have hit/killed one by now" argument is a valid one. There are so many vehicles moving on the planet now that surely, someone would have struck some of these creatures.)

Animalistic: I am making this category to lump a lot of cryptids together. These would be animals that, in general, look like other animals. The main difference would be in their size, aggression, or intelligence. I am also going to include animals that are supposed to be extinct, and have somehow survived. Alligators or crocodiles in the sewers, which are supposed to be larger and more aggressive than other crocodilians, would be a good example, Large aggressive swine, Dire Wolves, 50 foot snakes, and wooly mammoths are all good examples. So is the infamous chupacabra. Often, these seem to be animals with greatly inflated dimensions, sometimes well beyond what biology says they could ever be. Sometimes, they are real, abnormally large animals, but not to the size that the witnesses make them out to be. For fun, just google Hogzilla. With the reports of a wooly mammoth roaming the Russian tundra, those are normally hoaxes, plain and simple. and not even good ones. The chupacabra is an interesting beast. Ben Radford actually managed to trace it back to the first report in Puerto Rico in his book "Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore".The interesting thing about this creature is that the description of it has changed drastically. Originally, it was bipedal, more reptilian, and had glowing red eyes. (Why the hell do so many of these creatures have glowing red eyes? That's going to be the name of my book!) Since coming to the U.S., it has changed into a quadrapedal animal with almost scaly skin, and may or may not have small tufts of hair. They are also unique in that specimens have actually been caught! At least animals that people claim are chupacabras. They almost always end up being a raccoon, a dog, or some other animal that is suffering from an advanced case of mange. I say almost because there have been a few captured that no one has ever been allowed to do any sort of analysis on the poor creature. The animals in this category either do exist, or have at one point existed. For the extant animals, their size isn't as great as the witness reports would have you believe. For the extinct animals, they are either another case of misidentification or a hoax. And in the case of the chupacabra, it is a real animal, at least in the U.S., but not only is it a case of mistaken identity, but the poor critter is suffering.

The Fae: These are the fairies of old. Leprechauns, fairies, banshee, and many of the other supernatural monsters from old legends would fall into this category. The reason that I'm even mentioning them is that there are still occasional reported sightings. Think of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Cottingley Fairies.

Chimeras: These are the hodge-podges of the cryptid kingdom. These creatures are normally described as having attributes from several different animals. Some of the more famous ones would be the Sphinx, the Manticore, the Griffin, the Chimera, you get the idea. The reason that I've decided to include these types is that they are the grand-daddies of all the cryptids that we have today. These are the original monsters that people told stories about. And there is, once in a great while, a report of one of these beasts, Most likely, these are either hoaxes or someone wanting a bit of attention.

Oddballs: There are a lot of creatures that really don't fit into a category. That or else I would have to spend a lot more time sub-dividing and sorting everything out. Some examples of these would be the Mongolian Death Worm, Inkanyamba, and Mokele Mbembe. These are, like so many other cryptids, culturally based. They are most likely related to legends that have been told in the areas for untold years. Given the range of their abilities, and the characteristics of these creatures, it is once again, highly unlikely that they actually exist.

Conclusion:
Even though every culture, region, and religion has at least one story of fantastic creatures, with a little critical thinking, it is fairly easy to demonstrate how doubtful it is that they are real. Most of these are probably the result of a combination of humans being natural storytellers and pareidolia. As I said at the start, these monsters can be an easy way to begin talking to someone about critical thinking. If they believe strongly in some form of pseudoscience, such as naturopathy, homeopathy, vaccine denial, or climate change denial, you can use a discussion about cryptids to show them how to look at evidence. It's also a great way to introduce kids to critical thinking and skepticism. As a matter of fact, I am reading "In Search of Sasquatch" to my son right now. We are going to go through the book and look at what the author presents as evidence. Should be interesting.

You would think that with all the people walking around in the woods, someone would have found one by now. Seriously, and 8 foot tall hairy creature in the United States? In New Guinea, they found a frog that is .3 inches (7.7 mm for the metric crowd)

(From Wikipedia)  The frog is standing on a dime!

From Thailand and Myanmar, we have the Bumblebee Bat, which weighs 2 grams and is about 1-1.3 inches (2.54-3.3 cm)

(From Wikipedia)

In Indonesia, they have the Paedocypris, a fish that is .31 inches (7.9 mm) long.

(From Scholastic.com)

Of course in Cuba and the Isle of Youth, there is the Bee Hummingbird, which weighs in at 1.6 grams and is about 2-2.4 inches (5-6 cm) long.

(From news.softpedia.com)

If animals that only a few centimeters in size can be found in some pretty rough and unexplored areas of the world, then why can't anyone seem to find any of the cryptids that have been reported over the years?

This has been a fairly long article, so I'll just say, if you want to contact me, leave a comment (Please leave a comment. I'm lonely for internet company),

Until next time, Be Good, Be Fair, and Be Skeptical.

The Skeptical Okie

Calling Bigfoot! Bigfoot, the BFRO, Finding Bigfoot and the evidence. (now with sounds!)

Hello folks. Recently, C-Webb, host of The Paranormal Skeptic Academy podcast did a show on an episode of  Finding Bigfoot. Episode 19 of PSA, to be precise.  He did an excellent job of breaking down the episode, and showing the mental gymnastics that true believers will go through for their beliefs. He also provided natural (and more reasonable) explanations of what the crew experienced, as well as their victims. Oops, I meant their witnesses. Yeah, witnesses, that's the ticket. You can find the episode here. You really should check it out. Like I said, it's really well done. Plus, he's funny as hell. At the end of the episode, he even gave me and the blog a shout out, which I greatly appreciated, and I owe him a few beers, or other drink of choice.

Something C-Webb mentioned got me to thinking, and as we all know, that's dangerous. He spoke about how it's more than likely that the BFRO crew was confusing cattle calls for Bigfoot calls. I have had an idea for a while to do a write up on the Bigfoot calls. These have become a very popular form of "proof" in the bigfooting community. If you've ever seen the Finding Bigfoot show on Animal Planet, you've probably seen the green night vision scenes where everyone is howling like a mad man. These are supposed to be imitations of the infamous bigfoot calls, which I still don't understand how you can imitate something that you don't have evidence for it's existence. Might as well imitate a unicorn. That actually sounds like more fun. But I'm going to take a look (a listen) anyway.

Bigfoot Calls
For a long time, castings of barely distinguishable blobs or extremely detailed footprints were the best proof of Bigfoot. Then came the blurry photos and shaky videos that were considered the pinnacle of Bigfoot evidence. Now, it's the seems that the mysterious calls that are supposedly made by Bigfoot are the hot new evidence. You can find them all over YouTube. Or if you're like me, you have people send them to you on Facebook. And e-mail. And Google+. And in real life. And everyone wants me to explain them. One of the main issues with trying to figure out these calls is that the video and audio recordings are normally lacking a lot of context I would need to make a reasonable identification, such as time of the year, the geographic location, or even the time of day. For full disclosure, and for those of you that are new to the blog (yes, I do this kind of thing a lot) I am not a biologist, botanist, chemist, physicist, or any other sort of -ist. My main qualification to discuss cryptids is my many years of tracking wildlife, and the occasional person. I do hunt, not for sport, but to supplement feeding my family and to protect my family's livestock. I have tracked everything from rabbits and skunks to wolves and cougars, and if I want to brag a bit, I'm pretty good at it. I have spent a lot of time out in the woods and wilds and I am fairly familiar with what goes on. With that said, a lot of the noises that the Bigfoot researchers claim are from a mysterious humanoid ape are mostly normal woodland animals. If they aren't just pranksters messing with them. These calls, for the most part, seem to consist of low pitched growls and grunts, and the occasional scream. I have also seen them yell "That's a Squatch!" when it's obviously a cow lowing. Seriously, something is going Mooooo, and they think it's Bigfoot. Which makes me think of:

Your typical Bigfoot aficionados tend to mistake a lot of noises for Bigfoot. I'll get into the main issue about this in a moment. First for your listening pleasure, here are some animals that may be commonly mistaken for Bigfoot. I am unable to post the sounds directly in the blog. Instead, I'm going to link to the noises. Enjoy, but as a warning, don't have the volume maxed out on your computer. Some of these are pretty damn loud.

Here is a good example of some of the odd noises that elk make. Notice that a lot of the deeper noises are very similar to the ones that a lot of bigfooters claim are made by the elusive Sasquatch.

Here are some vocalizations made by black bears. Notice the similarities, again, to some of the noises that almost made Moneymaker and crew pee their pants in excitement.

Here are some cute noises made by mule deer.

Here are a variety of noises made by pigs. once again, some of them could easily be confused for a larger animal.

Here are some examples of the sounds made by cougars (No, not those cougars, I meant Mountain Lions!)

Here are a bunch of videos with a variety of noises made by whitetailed deer. Noisy bastards, aren't they?

And of course rabbits, squirrels, wolves, coyotes, pack rats, skunks, opossums, raccoons, and everything else that lives in the woods makes some sort of vocalization.
(As a side note, I have often wondered why Ranae hasn't pointed out more natural explanations, then I realized that 1) the episodes are probably edited that way, and 2) she seems to have journeyed to the dark side in recent episodes, becoming more of a believer than a skeptic.)
Keep in mind that a lot of the BFRO investigations occur in rural areas, which means that there are cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, mules, donkeys, various sorts of fowl, rabbits, and other animals that make a wide variety of noises. If you're not familiar with all the sounds that these animals make, it can be easy to mistake them for an unknown animal. As well, a lot of their investigations take place in areas that are inhabited by all sorts of wildlife. If you look at my previous post, which you can find here, you will see where I found that many of the areas that have reported Bigfoot sightings are also areas that have a native bear population. I have been unable to find a map of the locations of the recordings of supposed Bigfoot calls, but given the areas of the sightings, which look like this:

(the map came from reddit. I am unable to determine an original source.)

and the areas that have, say elk populations, which look like this:

(map from ar15.com)

(there are pockets of elk living in Oklahoma and other states as well, so this map isn't definitive, but it's the best I could find)
and here is an example of the territory of the territory of several large predators in the U.S.:

(Map from m.extension.illinois.edu)

(once again, there are pockets of these animal all over the country, so no map can be viewed as definitive. There are black bears, cougars, and wolves in Oklahoma and Northern Texas, for example)
and here is an example of the territory of the whitetail deer:

Map from Buckbegone.com)

All these maps, I was able to find using Google and just putting in various animals and territory map.

You also need to consider wolves, coyotes, deer, pigs, rabbits, birds, and bears all have a wide variety of vocalizations that aren't normally heard on wildlife documentaries. (they still make those, don't they?) These sounds can be unusual if you aren't expecting them. Combine the unfamiliarity of the sounds with the need to prove that the creature exists, and presto! You have a Bigfoot call.

Another issue I have is the equipment that the various Bigfoot research crews use. (and there are a hell of a lot of these groups, some of them seem to be in direct competition with each other. It's kind of entertaining to watch the insults fly back and forth.) Much like the ghost hunter groups, these people have some pretty serious equipment (FLIR cameras, night vision, super sensitive microphones, audio enhancers, etc.) and a lot of the times, they don't quite seem to know how to use them properly. They aren't as bad as the ghost hunters in that they aren't using an infrared kitchen thermometer to measure the air temperature, but they're close. They have the sensitivity of the mics set to a point where some of the sounds they pick up and record are distorted. Same goes for the hearing enhancers that they use. They also don't seem to take into consideration that noises in the woods are going to be warped. Also, sitting there in the dark, expecting that a creature is prowling around can cause your imagination to run wild at the smallest sound, which when amplified, can easily cause someone to mis-identify the source of the noise. Or you will start to hear sounds that aren't actually there. I'll admit, it's happened to me on occasion while tracking something. I'll be sitting there, and after a while, I will have auditory hallucinations. The thing is, the rational part of my brain kicks in, and I realize what's happening.

If you've read my previous Bigfoot post or my poorly written one on cryptids in general, you already know what my major issue with these researchers is. How the hell do they "know" this is Bigfoot behavior? If you watch the show, or listen to any Bigfoot researcher, they will always make definitive statements that "such and such is how a Bigfoot acts". They have no way to substantiate these statements. There are no bodies to test, none of these creatures have actually been studied in the wild, and to be blunt, there is no solid evidence that they exist. Therefore, they can't claim that the sounds they claim are coming from a sasquatch are actually from a sasquatch. They ignore all the plausible explanations and jump right to the make believe. Instead of eliminating possibilities, they simply add another. No matter what, that's not how to science.

Yes, you do use calls to attract animals. If you're going after a predatory species, you primarily use the call of their prey. I.e., if you want a coyote, you make a sound like a rabbit in distress to attract them. When trying to attract prey species, such as deer and elk, you have several options when it comes to calls. You can use a female call to attract a male, or a male call to attract a male. This primarily works during their breeding season because the males are looking for a mate, and trying to chase off competition. (How do they Bigfoot researchers know when the breeding season is? Does Bigfoot have a season? What do the males sound like? The females? The juveniles? These are questions that I have, as of yet, to hear a consistent answer.) Sometimes it will work out of season because they will come out of curiosity, You can also use the call of a juvenile to attract the females, especially if they live in herds. (Once again, how does a juvenile Bigfoot sound?) With animals such as hogs, calls can work all year long, and in a variety of conditions. But they are a cautious animal, so you have to be pretty damn convincing in order to attract them. (And just standing out there yelling  Sooouieee will not work) Calling is a viable tactic to attract a wide variety of animals, but you first have to know about their life cycles, habits, if they are carnivores, herbivores, or omnivores, and you have to know what they actually sound like and be able to reproduce the sound. If you've seen the Finding Bigfoot show, you'll quickly notice that there is no consistency when it comes to the noises that they think the creature is supposed to make. They make a bunch of different howling and grunting sounds, and if anything happens to make a noise, it's confirmation that they are doing it right. The problem with the show is, you don't know know it's edited, so there could be a half hour or more between the initial call and what they claim is a response. Normally, when an animal responds to a call, it happens within a few minutes. Anything longer than that, and it's probably just a random vocalization.

Real quick, I would like to mention "The Knock", which in the Bigfoot community is another form of communication that sasquatch use. This sound seems to be a solid piece of wood striking a tree. I personally have never heard it, except when watching a Bigfoot show. I imagine it could be several things. The most rational ones would be :

1. Something with antlers or horns hitting the side of a tree
2. A squirrel or other tree based animal throwing a rock against a tree (yes they do that. sit under a tree with squirrels and eventually they'll start throwing things and dropping things at you.)
3. A crow, raven, or other corvid type bird dropping a rock or hard bit of food
4. Someone with a wooden baseball bat pranking the bigfooters.
5. Random falling objects hitting a tree

If you watch these shows, you'll see that they never quite look for the source of these sounds. They just go running off in random directions, making a ton of noise, which will scare any animal off or warn a prankster that someone is coming. They should try and pinpoint the direction of the sound, carefully go towards it, and examine everything to see if they can find what might have made the noise. They might be surprised at what they find, and slightly disappointed. Something else that they never seem to take into consideration is that sounds can be misleading in the woods, especially at night. They may be farther off than you think they are, or they may originate from a slightly different direction.

It would be cool if Bigfoot and some of the other cryptids actually existed. I would love it. It would be a new avenue of study for biologists, conservationists, environmentalists, and other fields of study. But unfortunately, the evidence isn't there. It sucks, but that's the truth.

So until next time, Be Good, Be Skeptical, and Be sure to eat your veggies.

The Skeptical Okie

Homeopathy and the Hound

Hello everyone. No long rambling preamble this time, but I am going to ask a favor. If you enjoy this post, or any others I have written, please share it on Twitter, Facebook, or print it out and hand out copies to strangers on the street. Everyone will thank you for it. Now for todays topic. And as a quick aside, I've been working on this for quite a while. I keep getting so frustrated I have to leave it, and later come back and edit out most of the swearing.

Homeopathy and animals.
Most of the time, when I see articles about alternative medicine, they normally relate to the U.K. or central Europe.  This time, it was Oklahoma's Channel 9 news that did a story on people using alt med to help their pets.  You can find the article here.   What really gets me is that the people interviewed claim there was an immediate improvement when they began the treatments.  I do understand the use of the placebo effect on a human when it's end of life care and all other options have been utilized. But as far as I can find, there are no reputable studies that show the placebo effect has any benefit to animals.   I think this is more for the relief of the owners than the animals.  Alt med hasn't really been shown to have much of an effect on an animals level of stress, which is about the only way to determine pain in an animal that is unable to talk.  If the pet isn't responding well to science based medicine, and the owners decide to go down the alternative medicine path, the owners feel better, because they feel they are doing everything they can to help the animal, which in turn will reduce the stress levels of the pet.  So I guess, in a round about way, a placebo does have an effect on pets, just indirectly through their owner.  At the end of the article, it says that the dog has the energy of a dog half her age.  In an ironic twist, I am going to use an anecdote.  I have 3 dogs, all are stock dog varieties, 2 Heelers (which are stock trained) and 1 Australian Shepherd. The oldest is around 15 years right now, (and the 7 dog years to every 1 human year is just an old wives tale.)  and occasionally suffers from arthritis.  The symptoms come and go.  For a couple of days, the dog hobbles around the yard, barely mobile, and then he's running and playing with the others.  This is normal, though most of your standard alt med practitioners won't tell you this. Most of these treatments tend to rely heavily on the fact that most symptoms will come and go as the condition continues. And before anyone starts saying "You skeptics have never worked with a homeopath!", I have worked with a homeopathic/naturopathic vet. She was nowhere near as effective at treating the animals in our care as any of the other vets I have had the pleasure to work with.

I, like most other people in the blogosphere that could be called skeptics, have written on homeopathy, folk medicine, acupuncture, and naturopathy. (click the words to read some of my previous articles.) We are fairly familiar with these alternative medical modalities, and the placebo effect, and are aware of the fact that they most likely don't work.  But I think there is more at work here than just the placebo effect that you normally find in alt med. I really think that the Clever Hans effect is involved. Just in case you aren't familiar with this fallacy (and it's pretty interesting), I will try and give a brief overview of what is.

Clever Hans
In the later part of the 19th  and early 20th century, a German math teacher named Wilhelm Von Osten tried to teach a horse to do math. I have seen a couple of reasons for this. One was that he was trying to show that his teaching methods were so good that he could even teach an animal to do math. Another one I've seen is that he felt that animal intelligence had been greatly under estimated, so he was trying to prove that animals were smarter than people thought they were. Either way, he worked with a horse named Hans, and eventually was convinced that the equine scholar could answer math questions by stamping out the sums. During the training phase, the horse received praise and a treat when he answered correctly. (standard animal training/Pavlovian response) Von Osten began showing off the horse, and of course people were amazed. There was an investigation of the animals abilities, and when they brought in the psychologist Oskar Pfungst, he found that the horse wasn't actually doing math. Instead, he was picking up on subtle body cues and responding appropriately. When his tapping would reach the correct number, his owner would minutely shift his body, and the horse would stop. They even tried having other people ask the questions. His accuracy dropped a bit, but not by much. But if Hans couldn't see the questioner, or if the questioner didn't know the answer ahead of time, he got the answer wrong. Still an impressive ability, even if the horse can't do your taxes. There are quite a few articles on this, including The Skeptics Dictionary, Wikipedia, and Damn Interesting and they go into a lot more detail.

So what does the Clever Hans fallacy have to do with alternative medicine and veterinary medicine? Quite a bit actually. Pets can't talk and tell you how they feel. An animal could be in pain and a human wouldn't be able to tell because their body language is different from ours. We can tell if they are limping, not eating, or whining, but minor changes in their body language are difficult for most people to pick up on. Domestic animals, namely dogs and to a lesser extent cats, will normally respond to a humans body language, however. If you're happy, they'll act in a manner we interpret as happy. If you're sad or upset, their behavior will change. When you take your dog to a vet, quite often, you're nervous and anxious, which will affect how the dog is acting. Afterward, if you think the treatment is working, you'll be happy, and your pooch will respond to the change in body language. Combine this with the fact that most ailments wax and wane, and you can see why some people feel that alt med can be effective for treating animals. That's may be why the people claimed that there was an immediate change in their animal. Of course, they are possibly biased towards alternative medicine (it doesn't come out and say it in the original article, so I am making a supposition here) and to prevent cognitive dissonance, they have to believe it's working and they see results, sort of like prayer. That also may explain why they felt that actual vet care wasn't working. Vet medicine, just like human medicine, isn't fucking magic. It can't treat everything, and when it works, it will sometimes take some time before any sort of improvement is noticeable. Whereas alternative vet medicine is just like magic. It's an illusion that is designed to make you feel better about yourself, take your money, and isn't real.

Conclusion
 So, before spending a large piece of your money on acupuncture, homeopathy, and chiropractic treatments for your furry friend, do some research, preferably through reputable sources (avoid Natural News at all costs!) and determine 1) If the treatments are actually for you rather than your pet, and 2) Will they really give your animal a marked improvement in the quality of life. To be frank, these alt med treatments don't work. All they do is empty your wallet, and possibly prolong the suffering of an animal.  Finally, whenever you are contemplating using alternative medicine, either for yourself or for your pet, remember what Mark Crislip of Science Based Medicine says:
Supplements
Complimentary
Alternative
Medicine

I'll end here before I go off on an expletive filled rant. As always, until next time, Be Good and Be Skeptical.

The Skeptical Okie.

The Four Horsemen of Derp!

In most peoples everyday life, there are a few websites that they visit on a regular basis. Things like Facebook, Instagram, Pornhub, BuzzFeed. You know, normal sites. In the skeptical world, we have Wikipedia, Snopes, the C.D.C., and PubMed. In the dark realm of pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and new age weirdness, they have their own flavor of preferred information. And the ones I'm going to talk a little bit about today could possibly be called

The Four Horsemen of Derp!

InfoWars

This site, along with AboveTopSecret, is one of the primary purveyors of conspiracy theories on the planet. Their tagline is "Because there is a war on for your mind" Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it. If you go to the site, and I highly recommend you don't, one of the first things you'll see are ads for various liver cleaners, anti-fluoride campaigns, and very odd supplements, on top of links to brilliant articles like "Herbicide Resistant Insects are Destroying GMO Crops Like Never Before"(seriously, that one is on there, I thought it was an Onion article) There are also a bunch of conspiratorially flavored "news articles" blaming almost everything on Obama, atheists, and anyone that's brown. It's a deep rabbit warren of actual news stories with a seemingly slightly plausible conspiracy spin to them. (They should use that as the tag line) This site is part of the Alex Jones media empire, and he uses it, just like his radio show, to promote his particular flavor of crazy. It almost feels like an "End of Days" vibe, with everything going to pieces all around us. If you look at a lot of their advertisers, you'll quickly notice a common theme. They're trying to get your money. That and they tend to be geared more towards the survivalist type of consumer. You know the type, guys (and a few gals) with more guns and ammo than some small countries. They also normally have a bunker, which may be an actual bunker or a converted basement or tree-house, full of MRE's and canned food and water and they also seem to have a perpetual nervous twitch. These people also seem to tend towards the sovereign citizen brand of lunacy. I often see very large trucks with lift kits blowing past me on the highway with InfoWars stickers all over them, as well as people wearing their merchandise with slogans like "9-11 was an inside job!" If you hear about a crazy anti-government conspiracy, or that the world is about to collapse and the New World Order is going to take control, odds are, either InfoWars is covering it, or they started it. 

Mercola

This one is probably the grandaddy of the Alt Med sites. This one was started by Joseph Mercola, who is an osteopathic physician. He just happens to give advise on every other facet of health. His site tends to have articles that basically say "Don't listen to your doctor, listen to us instead!" All over the site you'll find ads for..wait for it....Dr. Joseph Mercolas health products. *gasp*. He sells a variety of supplements, vitamins, and books, all from his company. I know that it's his website and he can do whatever he damn well pleases,  But at least he could try and make it look like he was supporting other Woo-mongers. This is just greedy. He also has an ad that claims his is the #1 health website in the world. I'm not going into that one too much. The internet and search rankings is a finicky mess as it is. He has a sitemap at the bottom with a section called "Special Info Sites" that cover all of the following delightful topics:

• Aspartame
• Cancer
• Fitness
• Fluoride
• Fructose/Sugar
• GMO
• Mercury
• Nutritional Typing
• Pets
• Vaccines
• Vitamin D

Voice-over: No, I don't think these alt-med folks are trying to scare the shit out of people. These are just topics that are controversial and so people are looking for non-biased, informative and easy to understand data. 
No, they're trying to scare people. Plain and simple. On top of that, they're trying to make a profit doing it. Some of these guys make me think of the Ferengi from Star Trek. The site is kind enough to let you know that every purchase helps to fund a variety of charities and organizations. Charitable giving, wow! Ok, so maybe he's not as bad as I thought. Let's see, what are the groups that are getting a cut of the money. They include:

• Campaign for Mercury Free Dentistry
• FluorideAlert.org
• National Vaccine Information Center
• Institute for Responsible Technology
• Rabies Challenge Fund 

You get the general idea. The money from the sales of pseudoscience products are going to fund pseudoscience groups. What really makes me sick about a lot of the alt-med crowd is that they have a tendency to discourage their clients from continuing treatments from an actual M.D. and use whatever snake oil they're selling. This puts people in danger, both financially and physically. Financially because this shit isn't cheap, and you have to keep coming back for more (drug dealer business model) and physically because they aren't actually getting help. Sure, these websites will have anecdotes and testimonials from customers that they helped (the disease or problem either went away on its own, or wasn't there to begin with). The reason you rarely see any negative statements is because the dead don't have anecdotes.

Natural News

Mike Adams, Health Ranger!, is the purveyor of the Beautiful Sunshine that is Natural News. This one site has it all. Conspiracy theories, health claims, anti-government rhetoric, promotion of alt-med, phrases like Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Brother, and on and on and on. One such headline claimed "The Department of Homeland Security still Controls what you Read" (Ironic, if it's true). There aren't as many ads on here as I've seen on other pseudoscience sites, but there are a damn lot of articles that try and make science sound evil and corrupt, and yet promote themselves as the only truly scientific authority on a variety of topics, ranging from women's health to genetics, and from nutrition to pharmaceuticals. However, this site, like so many others of its ilk, is just trying to scare people into buying their particular flavor of Woo. Mike Adams, Health Ranger!, tends to be a bit more vocal and aggressive than most other supporters of alternative medicine and organic food. As some of you know, not too long ago, Mr. Adams, Health Ranger!, made a comment basically saying it would be fine if someone were to kill proponents of GMOs. Then suddenly, there was a website, putting a hit on various scientists and skeptics. He claimed to have nothing to do with it, but a bit of internet detective work traced the site back to the same computer he used to manage the Natural News site. To be honest, I'm not sure what has been done about this, or if anything can be done. What I do know is, if you piss off Mike Adams, Health Ranger!, you might end up on an actual list.

There are so many flamin' bullshit loaded sites that choosing only 4 was not easy. I could have used MUFON, CryptoMundo, BFRO, or any number of other sites. I basically decided on my top 4 based on fitting with the 4 horsemen theme, popularity, influence, lack of scientific reliability, and danger. So based on all of this, and the fact that she really pisses me off, I present to you the last of the 4 Horsepeople of Derp!

Food Babe (Admit it, you knew this one was coming!)
Vani Hari is the Food Babe. Plain and simple. This woman lives the role. She famous for saying "If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it." Also, she has said that chemicals don't belong in food. Apparently, she doesn't realize that if you break anything down, at some point, it's all chemicals. That's basically what your body does. Her site has a lot of ads for her books (she has more than 1, what the hell!) and booklets, as well as a couple of ads for various supplements. It is basically her blog, which admittedly looks a hell of a lot better than mine. I'm not shy. She has a tendency to throw the word "toxin" around a lot. I don't know what toxin she's talking about. She never names it, just that it gets in your body. She is notorious for raising 9 kinds of hell about food additives that she thinks are bad for you, and bringing the full weight of the "Food Babe Army" (which makes me want a "Skeptical Okie Army". I'm sure we'd  be way cooler.) against any company and using public opinion to make them change their products, all because it scares her. At the top of her page, right below the picture of her holding a magnifying glass looking at a package of...something, she has a few selection for her readers. They include Investigations, Recipes, Travel, Eating Guides, and of course Shops. Her current front page has a recipe for raw coconut macaroons, This simple food can help Acne, Eczema, Digestive Issues and More! and 3 Things Doctors say You Should Do...But Shouldn't. Here again is that distrust of the medical field that seems to pop up in all these sites, except for InfoWars. I will bet you, if any of these yahoos were to break their arm (I'm not saying it should happen, and I don't wish them any harm), they would be at a hospital in no time asking for a doctor to help them. The Food Babe site is actually a lot cleaner and easier to navigate than a lot of the other pseudoscience pages I look at while doing research for the blog. It's not as cluttered with ads and links, and is pretty straight forward. However, it doesn't change the fact that she is pushing her own brand of B.S. on an unsuspecting public. Ms. Hari says that she researches her claims, and she might. But like most people, both believers and skeptics, she tends to let her bias get in the way. She doesn't want to listen to the other side of the issue, and if someone calls her out and backs up their claim with evidence, she seems to have a tendency to just pull the blog post instead of admitting she was in error. She probably isn't as dangerous as Mercola or Natural News, but due to her influence in main stream media, she does have a tendency to make relatively simple issues way more complicated and difficult than they need to be.

All of these sites, as well as the thousands of others, have a few things in common. They have merchandise they want to sell. They have something they want to say, though I don't know if they actually believe what they are saying or if they are just trying to make an easy buck. They have a very devoted, almost to the point of rabid, following. They all promote some form of junk science or misinformation in a form that makes it easier for large numbers of people to grab onto it and believe it; If you want to keep a bit ahead of what the next weeks conversation at work or when visiting relatives is going to be, take a look at these sites. Just be sure not to read too much at one time. You've seen the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, right? When everyones faces melt. I'm pretty sure that may happen if you spend too much time that far into the Woo side of life. I just thought that I would introduce you to a few of the promoters of the crap that gives critical thinkers and skeptics such headaches. So with that pleasant thought, I shall take my leave. 

Until next time, Be Good, Be Skeptical, and Be sure your phone is charged.

The Skeptical Okie

Mosquitoes....Natures syringes.

Hello loyal readers. The Skeptical Okie seems to be back in business, at least for now. I've got a doozy this time, so lets jump right into it.

This is the topic of the post. Recently at work, I met a very interesting , uh... gentleman? One aspect of my current employment is that I deal with people from every aspect of society. The intellectuals, the uneducated, the rich, the poor, the famous, and the unknown. We had a gentleman come in, and by some odd twist of the universe, I had to speak with him. Actually, there wasn't anything odd about it. He was either scaring or creeping out the other employees, so I got nominated to assist him. Due to the fact that there is a legal matter involved, I can't disclose much information about this person, except to say he was in his 70's, and on a fixed income. (These had no relevance to the case, but are actually fairly important to the reason I'm writing about him.) While I was trying to get all the pertinent information, this fellow began going on a rant about how he doesn't have to worry about any diseases. He said, and I quote, "I take 5 grams of pure vitamin C every day! I ain't got to worry about no damn disease!" I am going to paraphrase the rest of his story, due to the fact he kept repeating himself, and his liberal use of the word fuck, as well as other various combinations of cuss words and racial slurs aimed at the Irish, Germans (which I am a good bit of both) and Hispanics. Now, keep in mind that I am just trying to get his name, age, contact info, and the when, where, and how concerning his incident. He then told me that his doctor told him he had a condition (he tried several times to pronounce it and couldn't. I have no idea what his condition was supposed to be.) He didn't like his treatment option, which was a high level dose of antibiotics. He went to another doctor and got what this guy kept calling a "Super Shot". the doctor then told him to take pure vitamin C and it would cure him. He said he gets it in powdered form, and adds it to his morning orange juice. Something tickled my memory at this point, but I couldn't quite recall what it was. He emphasized that he took 5 grams of vitamin C everyday. I'm looking at him thinking "Why haven't your kidneys shut down yet?" I said that I believe the daily recommended dose is much, much less than that, and that doses that high could have some serious health problems later. I asked if he had spoken to his doctor about taking it, and he told me he had dumped him because he wouldn't tell him what he wanted to hear. Then he told me that he also doesn't have to worry about getting sick because of mosquitoes. I look at him and politely asked him "(What the fuck? was in my head but out loud I said) How does that work?" He informed me that mosquitoes are natures needles. They fly around and they bite someone that's sick. Then they bite someone else and give them just a little bit of the disease. From there, as he put it, "It's science". The person naturally builds up an immunity to whatever the disease is. I asked him what about Malaria, West Nile, Heartworms, Dengue, and Yellow Fever? These are all transmitted by mosquitoes. He then told me that, no, something else does this. What, he didn't know. The only disease that mosquitoes can spread is AIDS. AIDS isn't caused by people humping (his word), or blood, or kissing, it's the damn mosquitoes. I told him I really don't think the virus could live in a mosquito long enough to be transmitted, but he was adamant that it would. While he was saying this, I began sketching the lovely piece of art you see at the top of the page as a way to cope with the massive amount of Woo coming my way. I pressed him for the rest of his relevant info regarding his incident, showed him to the front of the building, and went back to finish my report. I can't understand how one person can know so much wrong. I've been stewing on this for a little bit, partly so I can research it, and also partly due to some legalities and protocols at my place of employment.

So now I'll share what I've found. Starting with the bit about vitamin C, according to the Mayo Clinic, the recommended daily dose is 65-90 mg per day, with an upper limit of 2,000 mg. I've done the math, and 5 grams = 5000 mg. So he is basically taking 21/2 times the upper limit of vitamin C. Some of the symptoms of a mega dose like this are :

• Diarrhea
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Heartburn
• Abdominal bloating and cramps
• Headache
• Insomnia
• Kidney stones

(You can find this info from the Mayo Clinic HERE)
The last couple of years, mega doses of various vitamins, especially C, have been the popular thing to be offered by a lot of the Alt Med crowd. The problem is, unless you have a nutritional deficicency due to an illness or a genetic condition, most Americans easily get all the vitamins they need in just their diet alone. No need for supplements. Increasing your daily intake of any vitamin rarely does you any good, your body will just get rid of the excess in your waste. So it is literally money down the toilet.

The thing that tickled my mind about being familiar finally fell into place. Around the same time, there was a former doctor going around Oklahoma City offering what he called the Jesus Shot for $300 dollars, and former and current military got a discount. He claimed it would cure you from pain for the rest of your life. His description of the shot sounded similar to what other people had described, and I think he got swindled by the same quack.You can read a bit more about it from the Raw Story HERE. There is also an article from one of our local news affiliates, News9, but I really didn't want to link to it. The comments on the article are very disheartening. Person after person either claiming that his treatments worked for them or someone that they know, or else they are begging, literally begging to know where he is now so they can get the "Jesus shot" to help manage their symptoms. It's pretty damn depressing.

Finally, about mosquitoes transmitting AIDS, Looking through PubMed, I didn't find anything saying that it could be transmitted by this route. From what I could find, outside of a few fringe sites, everyone pretty much agrees that you can not get AIDS from a mosquito. First off, the virus is incapable of reproducing in any arthropod (mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, etc). Secondly, The viability of the virus outside of a human host is extremely short. The virus would most likely die between feedings. You can read the abstract from the NCBI HERE.

So, in conclusion, this guy was severely deluded or mislead, and possibly putting himself at great risk from trusting quacks and hearsay. This is one of the major reasons that the skeptic community and movement exist, to protect people from charlatans, misinformation, and misconceptions. Relying on Woo and pseudoscience can be costly ($300 a pop for a "miracle shot?) and dangerous (not going to real doctors).  We need to pick our battles, yes, and I know that if someone is a true believer in some form of pseudoscience, you are not going to change their mind. But I will still attempt to at least give these people some additional information to hopefully get them looking at a more science based approach to their problems.

So until next time, Be Good, Be Skeptical, and be sure to tip your waiter.

The Skeptical Okie.